The Great American Novel?

Jennifer Szalai and Mohsin Hamid, writing in the Times, ask, "Where are the best American novels written by women?"

Both writers evade the question by arguing that it's a flawed question.

Szalai, for example, turns the question by asking why we even debate it:

Instead of the Great American Novel, maybe we should be talking more about our Great American Fixation, the insistent desire to find the book that tells us who we are. How we define that search — what counts, what doesn’t — has said as much about “the American soul” as any novel that’s supposed to do the same.

Similarly, Hamid dismisses the question as simplistic:

The point of there being a notion of the Great American Novel is to elevate fiction. It’s a target for writers to aim at. It’s a mythological beast, an impossible mountaintop, a magical vale in the forest, a place to get storytellers dreaming of one day reaching. It keeps you warm when times are cold, and times in the world of writing for a living are mostly cold.